The Tale of the Silver Sphere
by TheBigCat
Summary: In which Valkyrie fights zombies, jumps off railings, and is generally stupid and/or heroic.


The young girl in the black jacket winced as a zombie tried to rip her throat out. She batted the zombie away easily with her shock stick, and jabbed her elbow in the place where its ribs should have been.

When that didn't work, she clicked her fingers. A round ball of flame flared up, and she tossed it at the zombie with the skill of one who has done it many times before. It exploded in an impressive display of pyrotechnics.

The girl brushed zombie skin off her jacket, which had, up to this point, been perfectly clean and pristine. She seemed more annoyed by the fact that her jacket was ruined than the fact she had been nearly eaten alive by a bloodthirsty slobbering beast. She fixed her hair back into a neat ponytail, and ran over to the Bentley which was idling at the bottom of the hill.

The girl, of course, was Valkyrie Cain.

"Are you quite finished?" Skulduggery asked her, moving the car into first gear. Valkyrie pouted.

"You aren't impressed by how quickly I dealt with the zombies?"

The black car motored smoothly down the road. "No, because today we aren't going zombie hunting. In fact, zombie hunting is practically the last thing we want to do today."

"We have days for zombie hunting?"

Skulduggery turned down a road. "Yes, yes we do. Tuesday is zombie hunting day."

"Today _is _a Tuesday."

He shook his head. "No, it isn't."

"I'm pretty sure it is a Tuesday."

"I'm certain it isn't." He stopped the car, and opened the door. Valkyrie opened hers too, and stepped out.

Valkyrie rolled up her sleeve, and pressed a button on her watch, which beeped. "Look," she said, showing him. "It's a Tuesday."

He stared at it for a moment. "Your watch is wrong."

He slammed the car door, turned on his heel, and strode towards the house that stood on a rise. She shook her head and followed him up.

* * *

><p>The door was large, red, and had an interesting design of concentric circles on in. Valkyrie memorized each and every detail on it, not because it could be useful later, but simply because she was bored, and waiting for someone to answer Skulduggery's knock.<p>

"Do you actually think anyone's home?" she asked after a moment.

He stared at the door with his facade. He was getting better and better with his expressions. "No, not actually."

"Then why are we waiting outside instead of breaking in?"

"Because it's not polite."

"Since when have you been polite?"

"I've always been polite, Valkyrie. You're just so violent that we cancel out fairly well. In fact, it's not the best habit for a young impressionable lady like you to have." He knocked again, and tried to look through the stained glass window. "_Now _we break in."

He removed one glove carefully, after glancing around to make sure that no one was there. He pushed the finger bone into the lock and wiggled it around a bit, until there was a faint _click_.

"I never knew you could do that," Valkyrie said, as he put on his glove again.

"Neither did I," Skulduggery responded, and entered the house. It looked like it had been abandoned for days, which it probably had. A thin layer of dust covered all of the fancy ornaments laid out on the side tables.

"What are we looking for, again?" Valkyrie whispered.

Skulduggery held his fingers out two inches apart. "A small silver ball about that big."

"And that's the device that ends the world."

"Apparently."

She sighed. "Why is it always saving the world? Can't we just save a small village in Fiji or something?"

Skulduggery was already looking through the drawers. "You don't prefer to be a hero?"

She ran up the spiral staircase. "Well, when I was little and dreamed of becoming the savior of Earth, I never thought it would take this much _work_."

"Dreams never really measure up to reality, Valkyrie."

That little bit of banter over, Valkyrie resigned herself to searching through cupboards, nooks and crannies, lighting up dark areas with a small flame held on her finger. She found nothing, except for a mouse that had probably died of starvation a few days before. She said a quick verse for the poor creature.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dusted, I buried this mouse because it was busted." She kicked some dust over it.

"What are you doing?" Skulduggery called up. She jumped.

"Nothing. Have you found anything yet?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

She ran out to the landing, and looked down at the skeleton detective, who was staring straight up. "Where is it?"

He pointed in the direction that he was staring. She looked. Set in the middle of the elaborate crystal chandelier was a small silver ball. "Oh."

He shrugged slightly. "Well, there's only one thing we can do."

She sighed, and stood on the railing carefully, testing her weight, before flinging herself up and grappling onto the metal rungs that supported the structure. Her hand caught on a shard of crystal, and she winced slightly.

The chandelier creaked.

She tried very hard to ignore it, which became hard to do when both she and the chandelier crashed to the ground.

"Ow," she said. Skulduggery knelt next to her, and brushed some broken glass off her jacket.

"I was going to suggest that we use the air to levitate it down, but that worked as well."

She rolled over and glared at him. "Why didn't you say so before I did something incredibly stupid and heroic?"

"Because it was funny to watch." He tugged the silver sphere from its place, and stared at it. "Yes, this is it."

"So what are you doing with it?"

In response, he placed it delicately on the ground, raised his shoe, and crushed it. It disintegrated into shiny silver dust. Valkyrie groaned again. "I think I broke my hand."

He examined it. "Yes, you probably did. We should go and get you patched up."

She got up. "But you do agree what I did was incredibly brave and heroic?"

"Heroic, yes. Brave... well, all you did was jump off a railing from the second floor of a house. I'd say that qualifies more as 'stupid'."

"Oh, shut _up._"

* * *

><p><strong>I decided to let my inner snark out. My first work in this fandom, which is a bit of a test drive for me! If you liked it, drop a review.<strong>

**Coincidentally, this is my 30th fanfiction on this site. *cheers***

**~Kitty**


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